By The Mystery Debate Theater Affairs Desk
The Mystery Debate Theater team of Tim Willette, Andrew Kingsford and Steve Rhodes couldn’t re-assemble over the weekend for Rick Warren’s Saddleback Mountain, but Steve pinch-hit with a run through the transcript. The following has been edited for space, clarity and sanity. We start with Obama and end with McCain.
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WARREN: Who are the three wisest people you know in your life, and who are you going to rely on heavily in your administration?
STEVE: Richard Daley, Bill Daley, and John Daley.
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WARREN: What would your greatest moral failure?
OBAMA: You know, there were times where I experimented with drugs. I drank in my teenage years. And what I traced this to is a certain selfishness on my part. I was so obsessed with me.
STEVE: Until when, five minutes ago?
OBAMA: When I find myself taking the wrong step, I think a lot of times it’s because I’m trying to protect myself instead of trying to do God’s work.
STEVE: I thought that was George Bush’s job.
WARREN: What about America?
OBAMA: I think America’s greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.
STEVE: And that’s why poverty is at the top of my agenda.
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WARREN: Can you give me a good example where you went against party loyalty, and maybe even went against your own best interest, for the good of America?
OBAMA: Well, you know, I’ll give you an example that, in fact, I worked with John McCain on, and that was the issue of campaign ethics reform and finance reform.
STEVE: He did not just go there!
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WARREN: A lot of times candidates are accused of flip-flopping, but actually sometimes flip-flopping is smart because you actually have decided on a better position based on knowledge that you didn’t have.
OBAMA: Right.
STEVE: Even when your epiphany comes immediately after the primaries are over.
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WARREN: You’ve made no doubts about your faith in Jesus Christ. What does that mean to you?
OBAMA: It means I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins, and that I am redeemed through Him.
STEVE: And everybody else is fucked.
OBAMA: And I know that if I can get myself out of the way, that I can maybe carry out in some small way what He intends.
STEVE: I thought that was George Bush’s job.
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WARREN: At what point does a baby get human rights?
STEVE: When he can change his own diapers.
OBAMA: Answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.
STEVE: I’ll answer once I’m president.
OBAMA: I am pro-choice. I believe in Roe v. Wade, and I come to that conclusion not because I’m pro-abortion, but because, ultimately, I don’t think women make these decisions casually. I think wrestle with these things in profound ways, in consultation with their pastors or their spouses or their doctors or their family members.
STEVE: Or they just use Plan B. So I’m told.
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WARREN: Define marriage.
OBAMA: I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian – for me – for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.
STEVE: God only likes three-ways when a woman is involved.
OBAMA: I am not somebody who promotes same-sex marriage, but I do believe in civil unions. I think my faith is strong enough and my marriage is strong enough that I can afford those civil rights to others, even if I have a different perspective or different view.
STEVE: It’s not strong enough to afford marriage to others, though.
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WARREN: Does evil exist?
STEVE: Yes, and it’s name is Hillary Clinton!
WARREN: And if it does, do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Do we defeat it?
OBAMA: I think we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil, sadly, on the streets of our cities. We see evil in parents who viciously abuse their children. I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely, and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, now, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world. That is God’s task.
STEVE: I don’t think He got the memo.
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WARREN: Which existing Supreme Court justice would you not have nominated?
STEVE: That’s above my pay grade.
OBAMA: I would not nominate Justice Scalia, although I don’t think there’s any doubt about his intellectual brilliance, because he and I just disagree.
STEVE: I new litmus test!
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WARREN: Would you insist that faith-based organizations forfeit that right to access federal funds?
OBAMA: I know the power of faith-based institutions to get stuff done. What I have said is that when it comes, first of all, to funding faith-based organizations, they are always free to hire whoever they want, when it comes to their own mission, who the pastor is, various ministries, that they want to set up, but, and this has been a longstanding rule.
WARREN: College Christians?
STEVE: Totally!
OBAMA: Yes, absolutely.
STEVE: College Muslims?
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WARREN: Do you think better teachers should be paid more than poor teachers?
OBAMA: I think that is a concept that all of us should embrace.
STEVE: Do you think better senators should be paid more than poor senators?
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WARREN: Define rich.
OBAMA: If you are making $150,000 a year or less, as a family, then you’re middle-class or you may be poor. But $150,000 down you’re basically middle class, obviously depends on the region where you’re living.
WARREN: In this region, you’re poor.
STEVE: What, Hollywood?
OBAMA: Yes, well – depending. I don’t know what housing practices are going. I would argue that if you’re making more than $250,000, then you’re in the top three percent, four percent of this country. You’re doing well. Now, these things are all relative. And I’m not suggesting that everybody is making over $250,000 is living on easy street.
STEVE: I am.
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WARREN: What’s worth having sacrifice of the American lives for?
OBAMA: Well, obviously American freedom, American lives, America’s national interests.
STEVE: Obviously.
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WARREN: Tell me in a minute why you want to be president.
OBAMA: I feel like the American dream is slipping away. I think we are at a critical juncture. Economically, I think we are at a critical juncture. Internationally, we’ve got to make some big decisions not just for us for the next generation and we keep on putting it off. And unfortunately, our politics is broken and Washington is so broken, that we can’t bring together people of goodwill to solve these common problems. I think I have the ability to build bridges across partisan lines, racial, regional lines to get people to work on some common sense solutions to critical issues and I hope that I have the opportunity to do that.
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HALFTIME
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WARREN: Who are the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?
MCCAIN: First one, I think, would be General David Petraeus, one of the great military leaders in American history, who took us from defeat to victory in Iraq, one of the great leaders.
I think John Lewis. John Lewis was at the Edmund Pettis Bridge, had his skull fractured, continued to serve, continues to have the most optimistic outlook about America. He can teach us all a lot about the meaning of courage and commitment to causes greater than our self- interest.
Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay.
STEVE: She sells stuff, like pasta that looks like Petraeus and Lewis.
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WARREN: Can you give me an example of where you led against your party’s interests – oh, this is hard – (LAUGHTER) – and really, maybe against your own best interests for the good of America?
MCCAIN: You know, by a strange coincidence – (LAUGHTER) – I was not elected Miss Congeniality again in the United States Senate. I don’t know why. I don’t know why. I don’t know why.
Climate change, out of control spending, torture, the list goes on, on a large number of issues that I have put my country first and I’ve reached across the aisle. but I’d probably have to say that one of the times that probably was one of the most trying was, when I was first a member of Congress, and I’m a new freshman in the House of Representatives and very loyal and dedicated to President Reagan, whom I still think is one of the great, great presidents in American history who won the Cold War without firing a shot, in the words of Margaret Thatcher. He wanted to send troops to Beirut for a peacekeeping mission. My knowledge and my background told me that a few hundred Marines in a situation like that could not successfully carry out any kind of peacekeeping mission. And I thought they were going into harm’s way. Tragically, as many of you recall, there was a bombing in the Marine barracks and well over 100 brave Marines gave their lives. But it was tough, that vote, because I went against the president I believed in, and the party that believed that maybe I was disloyal very early in my political career.
STEVE: Can you give us an example since 2000?
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WARREN: What is the most significant position that you ten years ago that you no longer hold today?
MCCAIN: Offshore drilling. We’ve got to drill now and got to drill here.
STEVE: Right under this church.
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WARREN: What’s the most gut-wrenching decision you’ve ever had to make?
MCCAIN: It was long ago, and far away, in a prison camp in North Vietnam. My father was a high-ranking admiral. The Vietnamese came and said that I could leave prison early. And we had a code of conduct. It said you only leave by order of capture. I also had a dear and beloved friend, who was from California, named Ebb Alvarez, who had been shot down before me. But I wasn’t in good physical shape. In fact, I was in rather bad physical shape. So I said no. Now, in interest of full disclosure, I’m happy I didn’t know the war was going to last for another three years or so.
But I said no, and I’ll never forget sitting in my last answer, and the high-ranking officer offered it, slammed the door and the interrogator said, “Go back to your cell. It’s going to be very tough on you now.” And it was. But not only the toughest decision I ever made, but I am most happy about that decision, than any decision I’ve ever made in my life.
WARREN: Great, great.
MCCAIN: Could I finally say, it took a lot of prayer?
STEVE: No! Don’t ruin it.
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MCCAIN: You publicly say you’re a follower of Christ. What does that mean to you?
MCCAIN: It means I’m saved and forgiven.
STEVE: And everyone else is fucked.
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WARREN: At what point is a baby entitled to human rights?
MCCAIN: At the moment of conception.
STEVE: I’m sorry, that question is above your pay grade.
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WARREN: Define marriage.
MCCAIN: A union between man and woman, between one man and one woman.
STEVE: No, were looking more for something like, “Marriage is hell!”
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WARREN: Does evil exist and, if so, should ignore it, negotiate it with it, contain it or defeat it?
STEVE: Divorce it!
MCCAIN: Defeat it. If I’m president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that. And I know how to do that.
STEVE: But I won’t tell how unless you make me president!
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WARREN: Which existing Supreme Court Justices would you not have nominated?
MCCAIN: With all due respect, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice Souter, and Justice Stephens.
WARREN: Why? Tell me why.
STEVE: I just don’t agree with them.
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WARREN: About 80 percent of America says they support merit pay for the best teachers.
MCCAIN: Yes, yes, and find bad teachers another line of work.
STEVE: Maybe in politics!
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WARREN: Define rich.
MCCAIN: Some of the richest people I’ve ever known in my life are the most unhappy.
STEVE: Just think how miserable they’d be if they also didn’t have any money.
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WARREN: Why do you want to be president?
MCCAIN: I want to inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest.
STEVE: Plus, I find it oddly appealing to be the most powerful man in the world.
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Posted on August 18, 2008